Photo by Austin Kleon

Here are a few examples of some recent sparks: an Irish folk song sung by a Boston punk band; a creepy coffe-shop guy's tattoo; an article title about Iran's Achilles heel; a song lyric about the end of winter; and using a piece of rebar to make holes in the soil for corn seeds. See the connection between those things? Me either. Which makes me even more paranoid about being away from my notebooks for any amount of time.

Will any of these sparks lead to anything of substance? Maybe not, but it gets me closer to the mode I want to be in where my mind is creating every waking moment. It's not easy because life conspires against it. I've got a full-time job that is not related to writing and requires a significant amount of brain power to do successfully. And I've got a family that wants to spend time with me for some reason. One big step in the right direction is getting used to ignoring people's reactions when I stop whatever I am doing and start furiously writing in a notebook. When I used to take a lot of pictures I was never able to develop the photographer's absence of embarrassment. Since I made the decision that I am a writer—and not just trying to write on the side—I feel no shame, no embarrassment, nothing. I consider that progress.

—I just thought of something. Where's my notebook?

Photo by wili_hybrid

The first thing I've found is that the process takes a lot longer than I expected. When I wrote the first draft, my goal was to get the story out of my head as fast as I could and not worry about writing the perfect sentence—that is, assuming I am actually capable of writing something approaching the perfect sentence. Now that I'm editing, my goal is to write those perfect sentences, and I am coming to understand the agony of sweating out every single word.

While writing the first draft I thought I could stare at a blank page for a long time. It turns out, I can stare at a page with words on it even longer. I've been working on it for two weeks and I've only revised two scenes. If I continue at this pace, it will never be finished. But I don't want to rush through any of it. I really do want every sentence to be as good as possible. If it takes years, then so be it. The best part is that I'm truly enjoying the process. That may change after editing a hundred scenes though.

Another complication I've encountered is tracking progress. While I wrote the first draft, I could easily track my word count. With editing, the smallest unit of progress I can track is a whole scene. So if I run out of writing time and I've revised less than one scene—which is common—I come away feeling like a loafer—which I kind of am.

I refuse to allow my slacker tendencies to derail this dream.

Photo by Amir K.

The other day my thinking turned to a field where a battle takes place in the novel I'm revising. It's a mowed field with a large gathering of boulders in the middle. I started to think about why a field might be that way. Thankfully, I had my notebook with me. Before I knew it I had written the back-story of the field and its owner. It's something that will never show up in the story, but having the background information will allow me to tell a better, richer story—at least I think it will.

Even if it has no effect on the quality or content of the novel, I had fun coming up with the story. I wrote as fast as I could and still had trouble keeping up with my brain. I found myself in a writing zone I love to get in and wish I could make happen on command. It occurred while I sat quietly, having nothing with me other than my notebook and pen. I had no place to be and nothing to accomplish. Perhaps my mind was forced to fill the void and do something useful. Further experiments to follow.

Do you have a reliable method to get yourself into the zone?

Photo by rich115

First things first—I'm going to take some time away from the manuscript (calling it a manuscript makes it sound more impressive—you may use that trick). I think I'll be able to read it more critically if I'm not so close to it. I find if I read something I've just written, I can't see any other way to write it. I'm hoping to avoid that.

During that time off—probably a month or two—I think I'll do some reading on the craft of writing. I'm looking at Elements of Fiction Writing - Description by Monica Wood and Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field. While I'm doing that, I still need to be writing so I'm going to work on a short story and see how that goes.

At the beginning of 2009 I made it a goal to write one chapter of a novel. That goal was neglected and forgotten until July when I found the story idea I had been looking for. For years, I've kept a list of story ideas as well as notes on the ideas. The idea that eventually became the story I've written was developed over a month of note taking. It changed drastically from day to day until it finally got to the point where I started writing. And once I started writing, the story just kept coming. My worries that I would be unable to get past 10,000 words and 20,000 words faded as I found myself at 40,000 words, 50,000 words, and beyond.

As I got used to the writing process, I found what worked best for me was getting the story out as quickly as possible—not worrying about writing the perfect prose. Once I started doing that, the words came much more easily. We'll see how I feel about it when I start editing. Vonnegut mentions this method of writing as well as the inverse method in Timequake.

Tellers of stories with ink on paper, not that they matter anymore, have been either swoopers or bashers. Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn't work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they're done they're done.

We won't talk about the next paragraph where he mentions that most men are bashers and most women are swoopers.

I'm excited to begin editing. It will be my first experience with editing a work of this length. I expect it will take as long or longer to edit than it did to write. I'm also feeling some measure of dread at the prospect of going back and reading the draft. I worry it will be so bad I will be scarred for life from the horror of beholding it. I don't think it's quite that bad, but you know how it is when you read your own work, it's like trying to judge your children's athletic ability or intelligence—of course they're the best athlete/smarted kid in the world.

I've been neglecting this site while I was working on the first draft—at least that was my excuse. I don't have that excuse now, so I'm hoping to have more frequent posts. If my past record is any indication, more frequent posts are unlikely. People who can generate a high quantity of content and make it interesting and/or useful are amazing to me. Anyone can vomit out gobs of boring self-indulgent drivel—even me. If I work hard at it, perhaps it's a skill I can develop like an exercised muscle. And if I'm the only one who reads no one will get hurt either way.

Cheers.

Photo by [noone]

He gives his opinion of semicolons towards the end of the Timequake.

Let me note that Kilgore Trout and I have never used semicolons.  They don’t do anything, don’t suggest anything.  They are transvestite hermaphrodites.

Ponder that for a while.

I’ve started reading novels with the Kindle application for the iPod Touch.  I discovered it’s a surprisingly good platform for reading.  Since the iPod Touch is back-lit, it is especially useful for reading in the dark.  Amazon has also been giving away quite a few Kindle books—often the first book of a series.

The book I’m currently reading on the iPod is His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik.  I’m about half-way through and I am enjoying it quite a bit.  Once done, I’m sure I’ll continue reading the series.  So in this case giving me the first taste for free will pay off.

There is one oddity I’ve noticed in this book—semicolons.  I have never seen so many semicolons in any other book in my life.  In fact, I believe after reading half of this book, that I’ve seen more semicolons in it than in every other book I've ever read combined.  I’m sure they are all being used properly, but it is unusual.  And I can’t help but notice almost every semicolon and think to myself, “semicolon!”  If Novik goes a whole paragraph without one, I find myself thinking about that.

I present you with an example paragraph:

Every feeling protested against the sacrifice of this dream; yet under the circumstances, he was not even sure he could honorably make Edith an offer which she might feel obliged to accept. And there was no question of courting someone else in her place; no woman of sense and character would deliberately engage her affections on an aviator, unless she was of the sort who preferred to have a complacent and absent husband leaving his purse in her hands, and to live apart from him even while he was in England; such an arrangement did not appeal to Laurence in the slightest.

Three in one paragraph.  Outstanding!

This has made me realize how developing tendencies as an author can create distractions for the reader.  Even something as small as a punctuation mark can cause a distraction as it did in this case.  Remembering this is especially important for writers who are not as skilled as Novik: the book is good enough and interesting enough that I don’t mind the distraction.

That leaves me with two choices, become such a good writer that readers are willing to ignore my distracting quirks or avoid the distracting quirks all-together.  Long term, I’m hoping for option one; short term, I’ll do my best to go with option two.

Will you look at that?  I used a semicolon.  And there is a slim probability I used it correctly.  I’ve still got a long way to go to become a master semicolonist.

Good day to you and semicolon!

In college, one of my biggest challenges was being able to write enough to satisfy the page requirements of papers I had been assigned.  I had to use all the formatting tricks available to fill the five or ten or twenty pages demanded by the professor.  I’d increase the margins, increase the spacing between the letters, use slightly more than double spacing, and of course use the Courier New font.  How I loved that font.

Photo by robotographyWhen I read what other authors have to say about their writing process, most of them write much more than they are planning to keep in the final version.  Then they slice and dice to get to their desired word count.  I hope I don’t have the opposite problem.

10,000 words has gotten me through four chapters and I’ve I still got a bit to go before my first major plot point.  I’d like to have another 10,000 words or more before I get there.  There’s a chance I’ll struggle doing that.  I might have to go back and add more detail to a few of the scenes.  I tried to avoid having too much detail—maybe too well.  Books describing every tree in the forest in exacting detail annoy me and I often end up putting them down—usually for good.

One of the most encouraging aspects of the writing I’ve done is how the words have come more easily the more I’ve written.  I had read that writing improves with practice and I believe I’m finding that to be true.  Here’s to hoping the improvement continues.

Aloha.

Every day in Google Reader and Twitter I find dozens of articles or blog posts with priceless information for an aspiring writer.  I find myself wondering, what did people do before the Internet? I guess they must have bought books and taken classes.  But how did they know which books or classes were the good ones?  They didn’t have the Internet to find reviews and ratings.

In the first few first posts I read was a list of books every writer should own.  At the top of the list was Stein on Writing by Sol Stein.  What an incredible book!  If you are a writer and have not read this book you are guilty of malpractice.  Stein divulges the secrets and techniques he has developed over decades of writing and editing best sellers.

Photo by SapphireblueOne of the things every writer has been told is, “Show don’t tell.”  Most of the time the person telling you that stops there.  Great!  Thanks for the help!  In one of my favorite chapters in the book, Stein explains what this statement means and gives some outstanding examples.  My favorite is a quote from a John Updike story.  A hack writer like me would write, “Polly loved to dive in her swimming pool.”  But a brilliant writer like Updike writes:

With clumsy jubilance, Polly hurtled her body from the rattling board and surfaced grinning through the kelp of her own hair.

Amazing.

Throughout the book Stein states his preference for literary fiction as opposed to what he calls “transient fiction.”  Read this book and he will come close to convincing you that literary fiction is the only form of fiction worthy of your efforts.  Sadly, I just read a post at Pimp My Novel stating that things are not looking good for literary fiction.  The public’s preferences being what they are, big publishing houses aren’t buying much literary fiction.  And for the books they are publishing sales are usually dominated by a few titles in the genre.   One of the dominating literary fiction books mentioned is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  I read it a few years ago and I would recommend it highly.

Stein has written many other books, both fiction and non-fiction.  I’ve got How to Grow a Novel sitting on the table next to me ready to be read in the next few days.  I’ve also purchased one of his novels, The Best Revenge.  Reading excerpts from it throughout Stein on Writing whetted my appetite for it.  I’m betting his fiction is as excellent as his non-fiction.

Ciao.

Photo by L. Marie

Sometime early in high school my dad gave me Citizen of the Galaxy and Starman Jones by Robert Heinlein.  I was hooked on science-fiction immediately.  I’ll read almost any genre if I’m in the right mood, but for the last twenty years, my one true love has been science-fiction.

I’ve had the urge to write for most of that time, but other interests and a decided lack of ability in that area pushed it out of my mind.  In the 10 years since college, the urge has returned.  And over the last five years has intensified.  Added to that is a growing distaste for office life and working for a company.  So I’ve decided to do something about it and begin writing a novel—science-fiction, of course.

I’ve been taking notes on four or five story ideas for the past few years.  I never got to the point where I would actually write anything other than notes.  They are all good ideas for stories, but one in particular generated far more notes than the others.  I would find myself thinking about it several times a day.

Certain events over the past few years have led me to the conclusion that I needed to begin the process of extracting myself from the mainstream IT and business world.  I came to a point in my life where I needed to fully commit to application development in order to stay current with the constantly changing technology scene or branch off into something else.  I had already decided that management was not the path for me.

All these things led to the decision that it was time for me to take action and work towards a career in writing science-fiction.  So this spring I became one of the many unpublished authors.  At this time I have finished three chapters and by word-count about 10% of the novel.

I’ll be posting anything interesting I encounter while I work on the novel.  I’ll also post articles or excerpts from books I read that I think will be useful to other writers.  There’s a good chance I’ll post idiotic or funny stuff I find as well.  My hope is to build a decent following so that if a miracle occurs and I get published, I’ll have a few dozen fans willing to buy it right away.  Sounds likely, right?

I’d to post semi-regularly, whatever that means, and I will do my best to make the posts interesting and keep them under 500 words.  No promises though.

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If you’re here for one of the programming articles I wrote for the old blog, I’m sorry to say, they are gone.  There was only one that people seemed interested in.  So if you really need to know how to search for a value in all of the tables of a SQL Server database, send me an email and I’ll get you the information.